


Welcome Home

by Fessran



Category: Ratha Series | The Books of the Named - Clare Bell
Genre: Gen, Implied Past Child Abuse, also theyre autistic which isnt rly relevant, autistic author, but gives some context to how they interact i think, ive always read thistle as autistic so why not her siblings too, or wouldn't say, takes place after the events of ratha's courage, the rating wouldnt be g otherwise, they didn't get to talk in the book and i wonder what kind of things they'd say, they're interacting for what is basically the first time knowing they're siblings, very implied like briefly mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:55:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22176640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fessran/pseuds/Fessran
Summary: Thistle meets her brother for what may as well be the first time.
Kudos: 2





	Welcome Home

Thistle has spent the day nipping at dappleback hock and has the afternoon off. She is supposed to meet her mother in the evening for a clan meeting; _just_ the clan this time, not a meeting with True-of-voice’s people. She’s not sure if she’s looking forward to it; Ratha is being stubborn again with that set jaw and twitching tail and cold green eyes. Thistle is similarly stubborn and won’t let the simple argument go. 

So trying to act like a united front among the others might be tough for both of them, neither of whom is skilled at shoving their stronger emotions down for the sake of the clan.

In any case, Thistle has time, and is using it to take a walk. It’s letting off a bit of steam and it’s useful for getting her thoughts in order. Or just not thinking at all.

Her paws sink into grassy moss and brown leaf mulch. She sheathes her claws so they don’t pick up any leaf pieces; they’d feel terrible rubbing against her toes, and she doesn’t want to deal with the feeling or have to worry about nibbling the pieces off her claws later. Best to keep them sheathed.

Her ears flick up suddenly; she stands still, one paw raised for a moment before lightly setting it back down, trying to calm her tense muscles, sore from a day of work. _Calm down. It’s nothing._

She thought she heard a soft sound, like an exhaled breath? Perhaps another clan cat is out near the border of the woods, too. She opens her jaws and takes a deep breath through her mouth and noise, closing her eyes to better focus while sorting through scents.

She recognizes the cat-scent immediately, the undercurrent of something akin to smoke that she’s come to associate with her mother. The family scent not only she shares, but Night-who-eats-stars does too.

She hesitates for a moment before gritting her teeth and following the trail through the forest. She hasn’t talked to him yet, not really, even though she’s wanted to. She may as well do it now, before she’s swept back into her mother's busy clan life. 

It’s been a while since she’s seen him. Since what happened with New Singer. She knows True-of-voice didn’t let him back into the clan, but Ratha hasn’t officially accepted him either (she doesn’t know if Ratha’s even talked to him, though if he's on the clan's territory, she must have) but he is allowed to stay and eat from their kills. Thistle hasn't seen him at meals. She's unsure what he's been doing instead, but hasn't gone looking to ask.

Night-who-eats-stars looks up as Thistle noses her way out of the bushes to his left, but he doesn’t look surprised to see her. Thistle tastes the air again, confirming what she'd figured; the wind changed direction.

Thistle makes eye contact with him and looks away just as fast. Night looks away too, choosing instead to stare out across the open expanse of grass that slopes down from his paws. This is the very end of this forest; everything before them is fields, with more dark smudges that must be trees in the distance. 

She’s not sure what to say. Maybe she should have given more thought to this plan before seeking Night-who-eats-stars out. She hates it when she’s interrupted from taking time to herself.

She looks over to study his expression for a moment. He doesn't _seem_ annoyed.

The trouble lies with there not being a defined set of rules for Thistle to follow meeting her brother for what is, really, the first time. Perhaps that’s better. Thistle’s never been good at following Named rules.

So now, there is just this- silence, casually loaded with things unspoken. With things neither of them, for all the stumbling words and heavy silences of their learning this language a little too late, know how to breach. 

What do you say to the brother you never _really_ got to meet? With a head full of- well, for lack of a better metaphor, _thistles_ _-_ it wasn’t like she was present when they were young, their family together. She hardly remembers anything from her cubhood. Probably moreso from her mother’s actions than her own mind keeping her in the dark. Well, no, definitely from both of those things. Her own mind works as a shield, even now. Blocking out any painful memories. But…

Thistle shuffles her forepaws, scraping the pads against the dirt. It’s dry, dusty, and immediately her lips lift from her teeth in a grimace. She rubs her paws on the nearby grass patch. A twig catches between her toes, and she spends a moment with her head ducked to pull it out with her fangs. She’s uncomfortable and confused by her own discomfort, moving to keep her nervous energy sated. 

Night-who-eats-stars doesn’t flick an ear at her, doesn’t move, still stares off across the meadow. His eyes, she has noticed, are strange and intense. Thistle sneaks a peek at them, confirming what she thought she knew but couldn’t well remember- yes, those eyes are a similar color to Thistle’s own. Blue-green, alternating between sharp and misted, evershifting. Her eyes, the ones she shares with him. This stranger. Her brother. 

Thistle turns away from him, for a moment, just to breathe. Just to escape recognizing her eyes in a stranger’s face. She squeezes her own shut, waits, breathes in and breathes out, then opens them again, feeling a little lighter. She focuses on her surroundings to ground herself.

It’s mid-fall. The leaves and light are syrupy and bronzed. Everything has the gold-red-white of early autumn, the light sparkle of the air, the faroff scent of herdbeasts and yowling of clan cats and rush of air through the uppermost branches of the trees above Thistle-chaser a symphony that spin through her ear fur and whistles by her teeth. She shifts underneath the canopy, taking a deep breath through her nose and opening her jaws to taste along with scent the damp leaf-smell of the wind. It tugs at her whiskers; she flicks an ear.

She’s feeling a little better. She turns back to Night, feeling the hum of anxiety in her chest, paws, the bridge of her muzzle and tremble of her tail. But it’s slightly calmer, now. She feels a little more in control of herself, wrestled her thoughts into working order.

“So,” she says. “You are my brother.”

Night turns to look at her. His whole body moves as he does this, like he’s over-performing what should be a natural action. “Yes.”

They make abrupt eye contact and then both drop their gazes. Thistle wonders if he feels the near-suffocating rise of pain and anxiety that’s familiar to her, the kind that comes from direct eye contact. She could ask. She doesn’t.

This is strange, even for her. It feels like her life has been one series of strange events after another, especially after meeting Thakur by the coast. She hasn’t really talked to Night- well, yes, _Night_ , but her _brother_ _-_ yet. She’s seen him, even talked to him a few times, but never alone, always with the company of her mother or Quiet Hunter or True-of-voice. This… this is the first time she’s talking to him with _just_ them. This is the first time she can focus on their shared eyes, or the voice that feels like it should be familiar but isn't.

Suddenly she feels a surge of questions spring forth into her mind, like a river rerouting its course, a wave carrying a flurry of sudden activity. The words rise to her tongue and she clamps her mouth shut, alarmed, trying to calm down, to sort out the disjointed thoughts lapping at her mind so she doesn’t make a fool of herself trying to speak. 

“Where…” she begins. Night flicks his ears, turns his head slightly to stare at her feet, proving he’s listening. “What have you been doing… or-” she growls a little, annoyed with herself “-what were you doing before you found the hunters?” _How did you find the hunters? How did you survive, alone?_

Night is silent. Then, he speaks. This isn’t the first time she’s heard him talk, but there’s… a twinge of her own voice within she can hear when she’s closer. A softness that Ratha, their mother, doesn't have. Instead, an echo of another familiar voice from long ago. It’s difficult to describe- perhaps, one that has more weight? Maybe their father.

“Stayed away from the birthing nest. Instead, went through forests… lived by lakes. Came upon the singing ones recently. Then found the one called _Ratha_. Lair-mother.” Night finishes, turns his blue-green eyes on her. The stars in his black pelt shift as he moves. Thistle finds an odd sense of relief (and maybe comfort?) at how he phrases this; he speaks like her, just a little bit off, speaking as if the _him_ wasn’t the same as the _body_. Thistle understands this disconnect. She always has. Her reasons for doing so might be a little different than his- she was the burdened daughter- but despite this, she feels relieved. The Named way of thinking, of speaking- she’s figuring it out, slowly, but connecting _herself_ to this body- it’s difficult to relearn how to view your own sense of self. 

She’s just glad it isn’t only her, isn’t only Quiet Hunter, too. Maybe the clan cats aren’t the ones who are _normal_. Maybe it’s not natural, to connect to a certain aspect of their self. 

Thistle wonders what to say now. Night is looking at her, but there aren’t any expectations in his eyes. She doesn’t know if attempting conversations make him quite as uncomfortable and confused as it does for her. If he's at all uncomfortable, he’s not showing it.

She considers telling him what she had done before Thakur found her, but finds herself saying something else instead.

“You don’t look like me,” she says. She’s curious. _Only in the eyes._

“You don’t look like this, either,” Night replies after a pause. “Neither of us look like the tawny or the copper ones.”

“Must have gotten these pelts from somewhere else,” Thistle muses. The clan cats had a wider variety of pelts than the dream-hunters, but there were still none with black in their pelts like Ratha’s cubs. 

Thistle thinks for a moment, then asks something she's been wondering since she's met him. “The clan cats call you Night-who-eats-stars." 

“Yes.” Night tilts his head to scratch at his ear with a hind paw. Thistle struggles to phrase her next question how she envisions it in her head.

“Is… is that your name?”

Her brother thinks this over. He shows it by tipping his head back to study the treetops. His brows and tear-marks are stretched by the action in such a way that Thistle instinctively understands to mean he is considering the question. This takes a while, so Thistle enjoys the silence, shifting her paws so she can sink into a more relaxed position. She’s less aware of the paw-steps of distance between them now. 

Eventually, he has a reply, turning his head so his eyes look back down at her. “It fits.” His light tone makes Thistle loll her tongue at him. 

“Did you call yourself anything before?”

Night considers. “No. Don’t think so.” He pauses, then asks, his tone a little disjointed and clumsy with lack of previous question-asking, “did you?”

“Newt. But like this one better.” Her self-given name had been her old way of connecting her body to fit into the world around her. It had also been given when her understanding and concept of self had been a lot more negative. _Thistle is a much better name,_ she thinks. _Even if it comes from Ratha._

“How do you feel about… mother?” the question comes out before Thistle can stop herself, and she immediately clamps her jaws shut, mortified. What a question to ask right from the beginning! If he was anything like her, that was a question that was too complex than could even be verbally responded to.

To her surprise, Night frowns and actually starts speaking, making her wonder if he is really making an effort to speak to her for her own sake despite rarely talking. “Haven’t really met her.” 

Thistle feels abashed. Of course he hasn’t. Of course he doesn’t know how he feels about someone he hasn’t _really_ met. She opens her mouth, to say something, to apologize maybe, but his next words stop her short.

“Hurt…” he is quiet for a moment, then takes a breath and tries again. “She hurt you?”

Thistle wonders, _does he remember_? She didn’t think he was there.

“Yes,” she replies.

Night nods, almost imperceptible. Thistle isn’t looking. She doesn’t want to talk about their mother anymore. 

She starts on a different set of tracks, something she hadn’t thought of until she’d tried to think back on the day her mother bit her. “In our litter… wasn’t there another brother?” She can’t remember well, but she thinks she remembers… one cub, two… others besides her. 

Night simply nods in response. “Two,” he says. His voice is quiet and deep, but despite his lack of movement and expression, it isn’t lacking in emotion. Thistle finds her voice monotonous, her tones wildly varied despite her actual mood, but Night seems to have better control of it. 

She struggles to drag her thoughts back around to the _words_ instead of the _voices_.

“Two brothers?” 

“One died. Very young.” 

Thistle is hushed. She feels… strange. Sad, maybe, that she somehow missed one of her brothers dying. 

“Wouldn’t feel bad,” Night says. “Didn’t remember for a long time.” 

“Feels like... I should,” Thistle says, quiet. This conversation- it makes her feel… ill. She scrambles to find something else, something she can change the topic to, but Night doesn’t seem in a hurry to keep talking about it too. The words, the memories she doesn’t have but wants to prod at, they feel like suffocation, damp in her mind, a forced clamp on her emotions to hold her and drain her. Distractedly she gets to her paws, shaking her head, her limbs twitching and tail shaking. Her mouth is dry. She swallows repeatedly. 

“Focus on the ground,” Night says in that same soft and heavy voice, interrupting her sudden rise of anxiety. “The feeling. The weight. Helps calm me. Might work for you.” 

She knows this, knows how to do this. She listens.

It takes a few minutes, but the rise of jumbled images of her siblings and claws flashing against her eyelids settles soon. Thistle stretches a bit, loose. She has more questions and wants to distract herself.

“Do you think you will stay?”

She watches intensely as Night only flicks an ear at her. The clan cats would’ve shrugged their shoulders and wrinkled their noses.

Thistle listens as he pulls in a breath that whistles through his teeth. “Don’t know.”

They settle into silence again, long uninterrupted stretches. The clan cats, Ratha’s cats, they don't seem to like silence, making every attempt to fill in gaps when there's lulls in conversation. Thistle finds the silence comforting. Right now, it's sign that she’s not _as_ strange as the clan cats say, if her brother doesn’t seem to mind either.

The sun’s been sinking as they’ve talked, bands of orange creeping over the horizon and the hushed leaves in the trees. Thistle narrows her eyes to try and keep her vision from going white, as it does if the sun blazes her from the wrong angle.

“I’m… glad we got to talk,” Thistle says when the sun has finally slipped behind a rising hill in the distance. The colors in the air have cooled enough that she can open her eyes fully, and she feels a little lighter, like it’s easier to talk. “Whatever you choose. I liked talking to you.” She’s pleased that it’s the most coherent thing she’s said this evening.

Night is quiet, but his voice is gentle when he says, “me too.” Thistle looks at him and cat-grins, feeling her whiskers brush her cheeks as she does. After a moment of hesitation, the flash of white against the black of his coat shows that Night grins back.

**Author's Note:**

> the alt summary was siblings sit in silence and contemplate their trauma but i thought that might be a bit much. that would also end up being more like "thistle contemplates her trauma while night sits and looks at some grass."  
> anyway, write the things you want to see or however it goes. maybe we'll see their interactions if there's a sixth book but for now i wanted to think on it a bit myself.  
> also this started out as a side project but ended up taking more of my attention so i'm glad to have it be done!


End file.
